Helen Mirren, Rose Byrne, Amber Heard, James Corden, John Boyega and Daisy Ridley will arrive on our shores in early 2017, working on projects in Melbourne, Sydney and the Gold Coast.

Homegrown directors James Wan and Leigh Whannell, who found fame with 2004 horror flick Saw, will also return.

Wan will shoot Aquaman, the Warner Bros-DC Comics superhero movie, on the Gold Coast after a $22 million funding leg-up from the federal government. It will star Jason Momoa (Game of Thrones) and Amber Heard.

And in another deal announced in the past week, Whannell will shoot the sci-fi thriller Stem in Melbourne, starring Prometheus' Logan Marshall-Green.

Stem will be joined at Melbourne's Docklands Studios by Australian brother's Peter and Michael Spierig's supernatural thriller Winchester, with Helen Mirren playing the millionaire heiress to the Winchester Arms fortune who built a famous mansion considered to be haunted.

With the big-budget action fantasy movie Pacific Rim: Maelstrom continuing to shoot at Sydney's Fox Studios and Will Gluck's Peter Rabbit starting in the new year – following on from Hacksaw Ridge and Ridley Scott's Alien: Covenant – the country's three big studios will all be busy.

Of the studios, Fox in Sydney and Village Roadshow on the Gold Coast are the big winners, with Melbourne's Docklands considered too small to host any big-scale blockbusters.

Ausfilm CEO Debra Richards said Australia offered world-class crew and facilities but needed to increase financial incentives for filmmakers in order to remain competitive internationally.

Ausfilm lobbies filmmakers around the world to shoot locally, promoting Australia's diverse locations, visual effects companies and government-funded filming incentives.

"We're in an internationally competitive environment so we need to not only be attractive in terms of that dollar but incentives that are offered," Richards said.

A 16.5 per cent 'location offset' tax rebate is available to filmmakers shooting in Australia - the lowest of any offered in the world. In the US, the offset is 30 per cent while in New Zealand and the UK, it stands at 40 per cent.

"We need to be on par with the rest of the world. International production continues to grow. It's not going down."

"We have great talent behind the screen in terms of visual and special effects and we have a great lifestyle. We've got a lot on offer but we're competing with a range of other territories.

Describing it as foreign investment "that could go elsewhere", Richard said the film industry promoted spending around the country and argued the location offset was due for a "top up".

Certain films are offered bonus incentives, including Aquaman, which received $22 million from the federal government. The blockbuster is expected to create nearly 1200 jobs and $160 million worth of local economic investment.

Films with a quota of Australia crew and stars are also eligible for a 40 per cent tax offset, including Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge which is poised to be a major contender in the 2017 award season.